


Life Is Not An Easy Game To Play

by itsanewday



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Apocalypse, M/M, Survival, Zombies, zombie-related gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-15 06:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2219661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsanewday/pseuds/itsanewday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The zombie apocalypse has descended upon humanity while Jean and Eren trek halfway across the country to get home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. So it Begins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gnatnip.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gnatnip.tumblr.com).



> This was inspired by gnatnip's zombie au art (http://gnatnip.tumblr.com/post/82816660060/zombie-apocalypse-au-eren-and-jean-stumble-upon-a)! This is the first time I've ever written fiction so please don't judge my lack of skills too harshly! This is just the first chapter, there will be more to come.

“Goddammit, Eren!” Jean slammed his palm against the steering wheel, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see the gas station shrinking in the distance.  “What were you doing that was so fucking important?!”

            “Fuck you, Jean, I was refilling the water jug.  You know damn well we might not get another opportunity.”

            Jean sighed heavily and leaned back against the seat.

            “Christ.”

            It was a close call.  The building was well behind them now, along with the those sneaky shuffling assholes.  Eren had wandered off.  He almost got left behind.

_“Eren! Eren where are you?!” Jean yelled.  He was looking into the dead, glazed eyes of three members of the newest blight on the world.  It felt like years since Patient Zero.  Holding a baseball bat raised in defense, he backed swiftly towards the driver’s door of the old pickup.  “EREN,” he could hear the panic creeping into his voice.  Eren was nowhere to be seen.  Jean climbed into the vehicle and started the engine.  He saw motion near the small building, and suddenly Eren was racing towards him, legs pumping furiously, carrying a gallon of water._

            “Why didn't you just take off, man?” Eren asked, his voice calmer now that the immediate threat had passed. “Nothing personal, right?” Nothing personal.  That’s what they decided when they took up traveling together.  If the situation is dire, self-preservation comes first.

            Jean didn't look at Eren, who was staring out the window, watching the flat ground pass by.  He didn't answer the question.  _Because I don’t want to be alone in this Hell on Earth.  I can’t be alone if we make it home and…_

            The silence thickened as they came upon more wreckage.  Cars overturned and battered, a semi-truck sideways in a ditch, a burnt husk of what it once was.  Carnage strewn across the asphalt.  It still made Jean sick to his stomach, worried that his loved ones were strewn across a road somewhere.  One of the Affected was shuffling along the median.  It saw them and moved with more urgency, but it wasn’t a runner, and it wasn't long before the macabre shuffling image was far behind them.

            “Where are we?”

            “Somewhere outside of Colombia, Missouri.”

            They’d made great progress since they’d found the truck in a driveway in Indiana that afternoon, door wide open and key in the ignition.  The find was impossibly lucky, and now they were only a few hours’ drive away from home.

 ___________________________

           

Something hit him in the face, and Jean bolted upright. 

          “What the hell are you doing?” Jean glowered at Eren, who was standing above him, pillow in hand.  The dorm room was still a wreck from the weekend, even though it was already Wednesday.

          “Your alarm’s been going off for the last five fucking minutes, and it’s 8 o’clock in the _fucking_ morning! It’s supposed to wake _your_ ass up, not mine!” He swung the pillow at Jean again, who blocked the assault. “If I have to listen to that godforsaken blaring one more time, I’m taking a hammer to that goddamn contraption!”

          “Fuck you, Jaeger, if you weren't up all night playing Call of Duty with your dumbass friends, being woken up 2 hours early wouldn't be such a problem!” Jean and gotten out of bed and grabbed his own pillow, and now the two were squaring off in the middle of the cramped room, each poised for attack.  “You come in here at 3 in the morning making a racket and waking up the whole damn dorm! Maybe if you gave a damn about my sleep for once, I’d care about yours!”

A knock on the door surprised them.

          “Jean? Eren?” a small, nervous voice called from the hallway.  It was the RA.

Opening the door, Jean looked at the short blonde sophomore who’d interrupted their fight. 

          “Hey, Armin. What’s up?” Jean inquired flatly.

          “I, uh, heard yelling.  I wanted to make sure everything was okay?” he said it as a question.  The poor kid had only been an RA for a few months, and still seemed afraid of confrontation, especially with Jean and Eren.  The two grumpiest people in the building, living in the same room.

          “Same as usual.”

          “Okay…well if you could keep it down, that would be great…some people are still trying to sleep.” and with that he walked back down the hall toward his room.

Jean closed the door and put the pillow back on his bed.  Eren was already crawling back into his own bed.

          “I feel kinda bad for him,” Eren said into his pillow.

          “Why’s that?” Jean started getting dressed for class.

          “He has the worst luck, getting us on his floor.  I think he’s scared of us.  I feel like he only took the job because he needed the free housing that comes with it.  ~~~~

“If you weren't such an asshole, his job wouldn't be so hard.”

          “Tch, whatever. You’re the one that’s hard to live with.”

Jean tossed his pillow at the other boy’s head, and they both laughed.

 

___________________________

 

_That was the last time they’d seen him alive._

          “What now?”  Eren’s voice brought him back to the terrible road they traveled. _What now? What are you thinking about this time?_   Jean was still driving—it was a miracle they hadn't crashed while he was lost in thought.

          “That kid RA,” he confessed, eyes glued to the road.

          “Damn…”

          They’d found him after the disease, or mutation, or whatever the fuck it is had started to spread on campus.  That same afternoon, after classes, the screaming started.  Some human, some not.  They were in their room and saw some of the chaos through their window.  They’d packed in a hurry and were rushing out of the building.  They found Armin in the back stairwell, arm missing and throat ripped out.  Jean had stopped and stared at the boy’s eyes, trained lifelessly on the ceiling, his mouth open as though in shock. He couldn't look away.  The blood drenched his shirt. _“Jean, we can’t hang around, we have to GO!”_ They left him there.  That’s when they established their ‘nothing personal’ policy.

          God knows how they’d survived the first two weeks on foot; sticking to less populated areas away from main roads, they were only armed with baseball bats and some rope until they hit Ohio, when they found two rifles and a handgun.  Jean wasn't sure how useful they would be, since they had no backup ammunition and neither he nor Eren had any experience or knowledge of guns, but they kept them.  When they found the truck earlier in the day, there was an ax in the passenger seat.  The driver had tried to be prepared, but the blood stains on the exterior told Jean that whoever he or she had been, they weren't quick enough.  He thought of his family and glanced at his hands on the wheel.  The gold band on the left ring finger was still unmarred.  _Please let them all have been quick enough._

___________________________

 

          “Why’d you get married so soon before you graduated?  I didn't even know you had a girl.” Eren said when he noticed the new piece of jewelry on Jean’s left hand after they’d come back from Spring Break.  They were in their respective beds, Eren laying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and Jean leaning against the wall, browsing the internet.

          “It wasn't a Vegas deal, was it?”

          “No, dude, don’t you know I’m a romantic?” Jean batted his eyes at his roommate.  “Really though, we've been together like forever, and I didn't get married—just engaged.”

          “So it’s an engagement ring? I thought that was just a girl thing.”

          “It was my fiancé’s idea for me to wear one, too.  That way the world knows we’re both committed.”

          “Hmph, sounds like a potential Bridezilla to me.” Eren winced at the look Jean gave him.

          “I mean…never mind.  What is she like?”

          “Out of your league.”

          “Rude. Why haven’t you ever talked about her before, I’m surprised you never told me.”

          “Probably because I hate you.” Jean replied, turning back to his laptop, a small smile playing on the corner of his mouth.  Eren smiled back and let the subject drop.

___________________________

_Please let them all be safe._


	2. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, there's some more death and gore in this chapter, see the end for more notes.

They’d been hoping to see less damage the farther west they traveled, but the evidence of the disease and destruction they witnessed in the northeast seemed to keep ahead of them.  Eren and Jean grew up only 20 minutes away from each other, never crossing paths until freshmen orientation in Pennsylvania.  Eren was from Kansas City, Missouri; Jean was from Kansas City, Kansas.  They’d quickly become friends, though they never acted like it.

Jean admired Eren’s spirit.  The shorter boy was braver than he was and had strong friendships.  Jean was uncomfortable in social settings and tried to make up for it by playing at being self-confident.  More often than not, his act turned people off and further alienated him from their circles.  Even after four years at school, he was still learning how to be himself around strangers with the ease he managed at home and around his closest friends.

“You’re an asshole.”

Maybe being himself wasn’t the most endearing quality he possessed, either.

“We need to stop and you know it.” He answered, pulling into the parking lot of a vacant hotel.  It was small and surrounded on two sides by tall trees.  On the third side and on the other side of the road was an overgrown field.  The sun was low on the horizon and they still had an hour’s drive until they reached Eren’s house.

“I don’t want to stop.  I say we keep going.”

“You’d get us both killed like that, you know these things are more dangerous at night.  We need to hole up somewhere secure, and this is the best option we have right now.  We keep going in the morning when the sun is back up.”

Without another word, Eren and Jean carried their few possessions into the hotel room and leveraged a chair under the door handle, settling in for the night.  They didn’t sleep.  The possibilities of what they might find in the morning weighed too heavily on their minds.  They each had a family, people they loved.  Eren’s parents.  His little brother, Ambrose, only five years younger than him, but still a child in his mind.  The family dog was probably gone. Shit.  Eren couldn’t stop thinking of their smiles.

Jean thought of his mother.  Her sister lived with them.  Jean’s aunt moved in a few years before he left for college, bringing her teenage son and baby daughter with her.  Tyler went to a close-to-home technical college and still lived at home, helping to pay bills.  _He’s able-bodied, he should be able to protect them.  Emily is…6?_  The thought concerned him.  She was quick of mind, but not of body, and would need more than a little help to survive on her own on a regular day.  Surviving this mess would be something else entirely.

Twisting the ring on his finger, Jean thought of his fiancé, who practically lived with his family.  Hopefully they were all together when this plague hit the city.  Their chances of survival would be better.  His chest ached.  Staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, he felt tears begin to form.

\-----------------

When Jean opened his eyes, the grey light of dawn was streaming in through the window.  Eren was standing in the middle of the room with his rifle in hand, eyes locked on the door.

“Eren…” Jean spoke in a low, cautious voice, hand already on his gun.  The other boy jumped, startled by the sound.  Despite the determination in his face, he looked so young.  _Hell, I guess I do, too._

“There’s something on the other side of the door.” The bravery in his face couldn’t disguise the hoarse whisper of fear in his voice.  “I was about to wake you up.”

_Damn. Wake up to be greeted with death.  Welcome to the new age._   Silently, Jean got up and went towards the door, listening.  He couldn’t hear anything.  Eren peeked out through a gap in the window curtains and pulled back, motioning for Jean to do the same.  Looking, he saw a lone zombie just…standing there.  Staring off into nowhere and swaying a bit, jaw ripped loose and just hanging off his face.  _That’s so fucked up._

“I have an idea, do you trust me?” Jean asked, holding up the truck’s remote lock. 

“Fuck no, I don’t trust you.” Eren answered angrily, “Get it over with.”

Looking through the window, Jean unlocked the truck, which was parked directly in front of the door and on the other side of the creature.  The zombie turned toward the sound of the locks clicking, moving its head and shoulders first, then its feet.  _Good, it’s a slow one._   Now was their chance.

Exchanging a look with Eren to know he understood, Jean stood at the door, ready to swing it open and get out of the way.  He met Eren’s gaze once more, his own determination mirrored in the green eyes of his college roommate.  Eren nodded.

The moment the door opened, Eren stepped forward locking his aim onto the shuffling monstrosity and took his shot, making sure not to hit the truck as well.  The zombie’s head was thrown backward, bringing the whole creature down.  Jean and Eren bolted to the truck before the body hit the ground.

An inhuman scream echoed through the air almost immediately, making the two involuntarily hesitate out of fear for a split second.

“Shit” Jean said, breathlessly, “Get in! Get IN!” He threw himself into the driver’s seat and tried to start the engine.  He couldn’t keep his hands still enough to get the key in the ignition.

A second screech came from behind them, somewhere within the trees.

“HURRY UP WHAT THE FUCK!” Eren yelled, anxiously gazing in the direction of the sound through the sliding back window of the truck’s cab.

The engine roared to life as a runner rounded the corner of the hotel, eyes wild.  Runners were louder, faster, and stronger than the slow type they’d just decimated.  Jean was pretty sure they were smarter, too.

As they peeled out of the parking lot, a second one burst through the nearby trees, reaching for them as they passed.  She was faster than the first one, and latched her dead hands in a vice-like grip onto their tailgate as they began to speed down the road.

“Eren.” Jean said simply, surprisingly calm.  There was a reason Eren rode shotgun.

“Oh, what is this fuckery?!” the passenger slid open the rear window and climbed into the bed of the truck as Jean drove, maintaining his speed and leaving the other zombie far behind with the hotel.  Through the rearview mirror, Jean watched as Eren raised the rifle over his head and brought the butt down onto the face of the clinging beast.  He watched as Eren did it again, muscles straining, and again, screaming in rage at the demon that refused to release its hold.  One more hit, and the zombie fell to the ground, leaving behind one of its hands, ripped from the arm at the wrist.  Eren pried the fearsome thing off and watched it fall to the ground as well before crawling back into the cab, staring straight ahead.

“This has to be Hell.” He said, not looking anywhere but directly in front of them.

“I hope so,” Jean answered, “but what if it’s not? What if it’s just life?”

\-----

The silence was tense and thick.  They stood in front of a smallish, quaint house, an ivy trellis and stone architecture giving it a cozy look.

“I have to…” Eren’s voice failed, and he cleared his throat, “I have to be the one… to do it… if…” he was looking at the handgun he held, struggling for the words that wouldn’t come.  It was unlike him.

“If they’ve turned.” Jean finished.

Eren nodded.  The destruction and gore hadn’t lessened like they’d naively hoped it would.

“Yeah, me too.”  Jean watched the broken windows and saw no movement.

Eren led the way inside, pushing the unlatched door wide open with the rifle, shoulders tense.  Jean followed him through the threshold and looked around.  The couch was shredded, desk drawers had been pulled out and their contents scattered all over the family room.  They split up, and Jean moved toward the kitchen.  All the dishes were on the floor, only a few remained intact, the cabinets sat wide open, some of the hinges were broken, and the small doors hung loosely, ready to fall off at any moment.  Jean walked up to one, touching it gingerly.  He tried closing it, holding it in place, but it only swung loose again, and fell off completely.  Jean bent and picked up the cabinet door, staring at the painted wood, with a delicate flower design spreading across it.  Eren’s mother must have spent a lot of time perfecting these cabinets, making them so beautiful.  Yet here they were, broken and useless.  Someone had destroyed it all.

Eren found him there, crouched on the ground, surrounded by broken dishes and staring at the broken piece of wood in his hands.

“They aren’t here.”

Jean startled and put down the door.  Standing up, he said, “That could be a good thing, they might’ve gotten out in time and hit the road, looking for somewhere safe.”

Eren nodded absently.

\-----

“Kansas City?” the vampire asked him over a slice of pizza, halting mid-bite to speak.  Jean nodded, chewing on his own slice silently.

“No way, Missouri or Kansas?” Eren’s cheap makeup was rubbing off where he’d touched his face throughout the night.  They’d just come from a Halloween-themed “Welcome-to-College” party thrown by one of the fraternities for the freshmen to commemorate the end of orientation week.  Because there’s nothing college kids love more than an excuse to dress up in ridiculous outfits and drink underage. 

“Kansas.”

“Ah! My sworn nemesis from opposite shores!” he announced with a grandiose sweep of his arm.  They sat at a long table in a nearby pizza place with a group of new friends who were lost in their own conversations.

Jean couldn’t suppress his amusement at the dramatic response.  They met on the first day because they were in the same orientation group, and he hadn’t seen this side of the brunette boy yet.  “Whatever, dude.  You always get weird like this when you’re drunk?”

“I’m not weird, I’m a poet.”

“You’re majoring in Exercise and Sports Science.”

“What of it? You’re a mechanical engineer!”

“At least I don’t pretend to be deep and shit when I’m buzzed.”

“I thought you said I was drunk?” Eren rubbed his face again, smearing the black makeup around his eyes that this girl, Mikasa, had worked so hard on.  He leaned his head on his hand.

“Probably, I don’t remember” Jean smiled.

“Hey, we should do this kind of thing more often.  You smile more.” Eren gazed sleepily at him and took a bite of his pizza.  “It makes your face less ugly,” he said, mouth full.

“Thank you, asshole.”  Jean looked around the table and the acquaintances surrounding them.  So many warm and friendly faces, quick to laugh.  Mikasa broke from her own conversation to lean over and say something into Eren’s ear.  They struck up a conversation and left together later that night.  They were close for all four years of school.  Jean was certain she was in love with the guy.

Her face against the pavement.  Her head and her body were facing the wrong ways.  Blood was pooling from somewhere, her eyes staring at nothing.  Just like Armin’s.

“MIKASAAA!” Pain. Nothing but pain in the scream.  The sound echoed off the walls of the buildings and surrounded them.

“Eren, NO!” Jean wrapped his arms around his friend and pulled him away. He could feel the sobs wracking Eren’s body.  There were several dead zombies around them, but far too many live ones were in the area, seeking out life and destroying it.  They had to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible.

“We have to go! There’s no time!” There was already a zombie heading their way, attracted by Eren’s cries.  Eren screamed again, an almost inhuman sound.  It pierced Jean’s heart.

***

They didn’t speak of her until many nights later.  They had settled for the night in some tall, sturdy trees.  Eren, staring into the night sky, began softly, “I could’ve saved her.”

“Eren, don’t…”

“I could’ve saved her!” he said more aggressively, “If I had been there, if I had found her sooner, she’d still be alive.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, there’s nothing we could’ve done” Jean answered, painfully thinking of his own loved ones.  _They’re safe_. He told himself.  _They’re all safe._

_They have to be_.

\-----

They pulled into his driveway.  The neighborhood seemed less affected.  Jean was hopeful.  If they weren’t here, surely they would have left him a note.  That’s just how his mother is.  She would’ve prepared something the moment they knew what they were going to do.  She had to know he would come home.  They walked up to the front door, guns in hand.  He kissed his ring, and opened the door.

Congealed in a grotesque pattern on the wall by the stairs.

His heart stopped beating.

There was blood on the wall.

There was blood all over the fucking wall.

It didn’t mean anything.

Someone else had gotten in, bled on the wall.  Some stranger got hurt.  They’ll find his body somewhere in the house, Jean was sure.

_“MIKASAAA”_

The memory of Eren’s desperate wail echoed through Jean’s mind, bouncing off the walls of his skull.

“Stay here.”

“I don’t think…”

“Stay here, Eren!”

His heart was pounding.  He could hear the blood of his own body rushing behind his ears and he felt ill as he explored the first floor.

The decapitated, shriveled body of a middle-aged man greeted him in the dining room, a deep groove in the wood floor separating head from body.  An axe was his mother’s go-to weapon for self-defense.  Did she take out this zombie? Did that mean everyone was safe?  He knew damn well that neither Tyler nor Marco would ever let Jean’s mother go face-to-face with a zombie alone, maybe one of them killed it.  That would mean they’re safe, right?

_Blood on the wall by the stairs._

_Eren’s heartbroken howl echoing off the walls of the nearby buildings._

_What is this world?_

Jean took a deep breath and trekked up the stairs, ignoring the blood on the wall and leaving Eren standing by the front door, staring after him.  His mother’s room was clear.  The second bedroom was also untouched.  The room he shared with Tyler…he sat heavily onto his bed and put his face in his hands.  Whose blood was that?  Were they all okay?  How could he find them?  Not knowing what else to do, he began to pack a bag.  _God knows how long all this will last._   He started putting things into a suitcase, and went to his closet.  He stopped in his tracks.  There, taped to the door, was a note.  It wasn’t his mother’s handwriting.  With a trembling hand, he took it off and read it.

_Jean,_

_I’m sorry.  God, I am so, so sorry.  I know we had plans.  You and me, till the end, right?  Well, honey, I think it’s the end.  I want you to know that I love you, but I’m not going to be me for much longer.  I’ve been bitten, and I can feel myself turning.  It was stupid of me, but nobody knows how one got in the house.  I turned around and it was right by Emily, I had to do something, you know? I love you.  But now it’s time to let me go._

_Marco_

Jean couldn’t breathe. His heart hurt, and it made his whole body ache.  On the back was another note, this time he recognized his mother’s handwriting:

_Jean, sweetie. I’m sorry.  I hope you read this.  We are headed west.  Supposedly there are safe havens being built in Colorado, Minnesota, Texas, and South Carolina.  We hope so at least, so we’re headed to the Denver area.  Please stay safe, and come find us.  Hopefully we will be together again._

He stared at the doorknob.  _Marco is behind this door.  I’m too late._   He pulled the door open and stepped back.

\-----

“Wake up! It’s your first full morning back, I can’t let you waste it in bed!”  A pillow hit him on the shoulders and Jean opened his eyes.  He looked up at Marco, who stood over him, smiling.

“Give me that!” he grumbled, yanking the pillow from Marco’s hands and subsequently pulling the young man onto the bed with him.  He snuggled up and started to fall back asleep, while Marco gave in and started playing with his hair.

“I missed you, you know” he said into Jean’s hair.

“I missed you, too.  More than you know” Jean mumbled sleepily into Marco’s chest, where he could hear his heart beating comfortingly.  He sat up and looked into Marco’s face, the warm brown eyes and the gentle spattering of freckles across his cheeks.  The minute Jean graduated, they were moving to a state where they could get married, and they were starting their lives together.  He was counting the days until the dream could become a reality.

\-----

The face was no longer warm.  It wasn’t loving.  It was menacing.  Hungry.  The warm brown eyes were cold now, glazed over with death.  The right one was missing. 

“M…Marco?” tears fell, and Jean barely noticed them.  The world spun.

He’d been bitten on the face it looked like.  The infection spread across the whole right side and down into his shoulder, the skin had disintegrated and begun falling away, exposing muscle, tendons, and the whiteness of Marco’s teeth and bones.  That’s what it does.  It doesn’t just make you a blood-hungry monster; it eats away at what you once were.  That’s why these guys were always falling apart.  That’s why Jean couldn’t bear to see Marco this way.  He couldn’t move as his fiancé shuffled slowly towards him.  The gold band on his left ring finger matched his own.

“Jean! Do it, now!” Eren must have gotten concerned and decided to investigate.

Jean was still holding his gun, but couldn’t raise it against someone he’d loved so dearly.

_“I’m not going to be me much longer…”_

He remembered the note.  That was the last trace of Marco as he’d known him.  This wasn’t Marco anymore.  He was so close now, he could reach out and touch him.  The zombie leaned in and made a low sound, it wasn’t human.  This thing was not his Marco.

The sound of the gunshot was louder than he’d expected it to be in the small room.  The creature fell backwards, but it was not a killing shot.  Jean raised his gun once more and fired into its head.  It didn’t get up.  It was then that he realized he’d been yelling wordlessly.  He was gone.  Marco was the one person he’d felt like would be able to get him through this whole ordeal, and he was gone.  He’d been gone long before Jean got there, too.

“Jean…” Eren began leading him out of the room, “Jean, I’m so sorry.”

Back outside, Eren started the truck as Jean stared at the dashboard in a daze.  They started west, towards Denver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked the new chapter! It might be a while between chapters, but please keep checking back, because I do have a plan! I'm not just winging it :) (Also, sorry I killed Mikasa, but she definitely took out a bunch of zombies before she went out!)


	3. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took so long to update! Life kinda got crazy for a while, I'm going to try to update much more regularly from here until the conclusion. Also sorry the chapter is kind of short... Anyway, I hope you still enjoy it!

Jean spent the next few hours with his memories, ignoring the world speeding past him beyond the window.  One thought after another came to him and absorbed his attentions.  The thought of Marco’s warm smile, the number of freckles across his face, and his gentle eyes made Jean’s heart ache.  He remembered how much Marco loved the sunlight and the way he found beauty in everything.  He remembered the grotesque snarl he encountered in his home.  The dead eyes fixed unblinkingly on him.  He remembered the blood splattering his walls and soaking into the carpet.  He would never be able to forget it.

“Pull over”

Eren came to the side of the deserted highway and Jean stepped into the open air.  He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind, but the image of Marco’s dead face came anyway, the skin missing on one side.  Jean knelt over and promptly vomited into the grass.  He sat down and buried his face into his arms—knees pulled up to his chest.  Marco had almost been unrecognizable, and he had been dead for so long, trapped in that closet.  His eyes stung as silent tears began to flow against his will.

Jean was almost angry.  He’d spent so much time and energy hoping that everyone would be okay.  All for nothing.  Marco was dead.  His family probably never made it to Denver, and Eren’s family was straight up missing.  The way things were working out, they were probably dead, too.  _Everything has really gone to shit, and there’s nothing anyone can do._

He felt Eren’s hand lightly touch his shoulder, and stood abruptly.  Not making eye contact with Eren’s startled gaze, he got back into the truck and stared forward until his companion followed him and they took off again.  Neither of them broke the silence until they were coming up on Wichita.

“We should stop outside of the city if we can,” Eren said to no one in particular.  Jean was grateful for the foresight, but said nothing.  Luckily they came across a hotel right off an exit, and settled in for the night. 

They still had a long trip ahead of them, and all of a sudden, the thought of the journey and the unsureness of the whole situation was just a bit too much for Jean.  He walked over to the sink and turned the water on as hot as he could stand it.  He washed his hands, feeling the heat sting his skin.  He let the water run over his hands for a few more seconds, then began to wash his arms, his face, scrubbing as hard as he could.  He had let “Marco” get so close before he’d pulled the trigger, he was sure he’d gotten some of the blood on his skin.  When his face felt raw, he shut the water off.  Bent over the sink, he looked up at his reflection.  The dark circles under his eyes aged his face, bright pink from the intense cleaning.  He watched the water drip off his thin nose and sharp chin.  This was the face that Marco had loved.  It was still human.  The face that Jean had loved was now rotting and half-missing.  Marco was dead.  He wasn’t coming back, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.  All Jean could do was pick up the pieces and move on.

_Well, fuck that_.  Jean slammed the heel of his palm into the face in the mirror.  It cracked a little bit, distorting the reflection.  He did it again and the glass shattered, falling all over the countertop and spilling over onto the carpeted floor. 

“Jean...” Eren’s voice sounded muffled behind the ringing in Jean’s ears.  He looked at the shards of glass scattered around him, glinting in the light.  They looked like so many stars embedded into the carpet, and he was standing in the sky.  It was actually kind of beautiful.  He heard the sound of glass crunching under heavy boots and looked over his shoulder to see Eren walking up to him.  He saw the concern in the young man’s eyes.  He probably thought Jean had lost his damn mind, standing still, staring at broken glass for what felt like an eternity.  That’s when the tears came—soft tears accompanied by restrained whimpers.

“Jean, I’m so sorry” Eren came closer and opened his arms.  Jean stepped into their reach and buried his face into his friend’s shoulder, holding the only person he knew he had left as close as possible.

“There’s nothing we could have done,” Eren echoed the words Jean had used to calm him before.

“I know, but there’s so much I wish I _could_ have done,” Jean cried into Eren’s shoulder. “Everything is so fucked up.”

“I know.”

They stood like that—wrapped in a tight hug, Jean crying into Eren’s shoulder—for several minutes, until Jean’s tears stopped flowing and his breathing steadied.

                                                            ------

“What do you want to do with your life?” Eren’s question jolted Jean from the nap he was starting to drift into.

“Get an engineering job and make good money,” he replied, settling more comfortably against the tree and closing his eyes again.

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Eren shut the book he had been pretending to study from, “I mean, what do you really want to do with your life?  Like, above everything else, what’s something you don’t want to die without achieving?”

Jean opened one eye halfway to glance at his curious friend, who was sitting on his knees in the grass facing him.

“Christ, Eren, I don’t know, I’m trying to take a nap.  What do you want?”

Eren readjusted his position, crossing his legs in front of him.

“Hell if I know…” he thought about it for a few minutes while Jean began to doze.

“I mean, I kind of know, but I don’t actually know, you know?”

“As your friend, I feel obliged to inform you that you are making approximately no fucking sense, and that you’re an asshole for keeping me awake.” Jean’s irritation at continually being interrupted from his nap was beginning to show in his voice.

“Okay, here me out,” Eren responded, uncharacteristically ignoring the second half of Jean’s comment, “I know that ultimately, I want to be happy.  That’s my main goal.  I don’t want to make a difference in the world, or some shit like that, I just wanna be happy with how things work out.  The problem is that I don’t know what it is that will make me happy.  Do you see my struggle?”

“I think that’s all anyone wants out of life,” Jean replied, eyes still closed, “everyone just has different definitions of happiness.  Like, money and a stable job won’t mean shit to me if I don’t have someone to share my life with, but other people might say that a husband doesn’t mean shit to them without the money to live the kind of lifestyle they want.  You know?”

“Husband?”

Jean’s eyes flew open and he felt the blood drain from his face. 

“Or wife, you know, as the case may be.”

“Yeah but you said husband.”

“It was just a fucking example.” Jean said bluntly, standing up.

“Yeah but you were comparing not wanting a husband to what you want, Jean.” Eren stood up with him.

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Jean started gathering his things, refusing to look Eren in the eyes.  He could feel his cheeks burning red and knew their color would be obvious in the light of a clear day.  He couldn’t help but think of the boyfriend he had back home that he’d been keeping a secret.

“Jean, wait.  Look at me” Eren grabbed the thin boy’s shoulders, forcing him to look.  His eyes were full of sincerity and curiosity.

“Do you want a husband? I mean, are you…?” the question trailed off, “You can tell me, you know…”

Jean was trapped.  He couldn’t lie because he was a shit liar and Eren was looking right at him, but he was more afraid to tell the truth than Marco ever would have been.  So he said nothing.

“I can see right through you, you know” Eren said, dropping his hands.  “You don’t need to say anything, I just want you to know you can trust me.  Just ask Mikasa, you can trust me to the end of the earth and back.”

\------

_Well it sure feels like the end these days._

 


End file.
